The rise and fall of snake oil

ssamizdis 4 days ago 12 commentsRead Article on historytoday.com

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janalsncm•about 1 hour ago

> Government analysis and enforcement of standards meant that snake oil had acquired a reputation for infamy that it retains to this day.

Notably, they ended up being shut down due to a lack of actual snake oil in the product, not because of their claims that snake oil cured maladies.

If we can draw a lesson for busting today’s multitude of scams, it might be easier to prove the scam is bogus on its own terms rather than appealing to science or medicine or financial authorities.

pedalpete•about 2 hours ago

I think they will soon be re-writing this article with the addition of "and rise again".

I work in neurotech/sleeptech and one of the biggest challenges I see in our industry is, if not pure snake-oil, the over-hype of "backed by research".

People have accused us of being snake-oil as well, and I get why they might think that if you haven't read or don't understand the science.

I've seen products that claim to be Vagus Nerve stimulators that are worn on the wrist, nowhere near the vagus nerve. Products that claim to mimic the "magnetic frequency of hormones".

We've also got the current "It's got electrolytes" craze which is kinda crazy that we've truly replicated idiocracy.

For those curious, I'm the co-founder of affectablesleep.com

dabbz•about 1 hour ago

Most of that site reads as a "trust us, sound makes you heal!" I don't see a single thing there that tries to explain the correlation between bumping your brain with sound and "restoration". It doesn't explain what it restores, why it works better than nothing.

Honestly this website doesn't seem to even be trying to sell anything. "Help your sleep" how? "doesn't make you sleep longer" but what does it do instead? Do I feel more restored when I wake up even with a shorter sleep time? It's not even trying to sell me on a specific outcome that I John Everyman is facing.

Snake oil things are typically very light on details and this site is also light on details. Maybe it's a victim of form over function? The site's design looks nice but has very low information density.

pedalpete•23 minutes ago

Fair criticisms. However, there are FDA limitations on what you can say regarding devices that both measure and affect biomarkers and neuromarkers while the user is unconscious.

This is why we describe the neural function of sleep, but can't specifically get into details regarding increases in slow-wave activity, 15% decrease in early night cortisol, 14.5% increase in HRV, etc etc. We can link to the research, but can't say "this is what we do".

We are relying on user testimonials, which we are gathering through our beta testing and beyond.

At the same time, we do describe the "clearer thinking", "immune function", "stress" etc about half way down the page.

It's something we will continue to get better at.

syncsynchalt•about 1 hour ago

The article is about the literal oil of boiled snake meat, or at least the product that purported to be that.

delichon•about 2 hours ago

Given that this timeline maximizes irony we will soon find that the demonization of rendered gopher snake fat was an early victory of big medicine, protecting doctors from the competition of a genuine all purpose elixir of health.

0xWTF•about 2 hours ago

It was not only the FDA that stopped snake oil. A lot of it was also stopped by state licensure and medical school accreditation (see the Flexner Report), all of which happened in roughly the same era.

What I take from this is that AI code, biology, etc, will not announce itself. We will have to announce the human-produced content. Introductions are about to be ritualistic again. Queue humorous (but not really all that valid) counterpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoe24aSvLtw

bluGill•about 1 hour ago

I prefer Professor Savage's swamp elixir https://www.lhf.org/event/medicine-shows-2/ they haven't announced the schedule for this coming summer, but it's well worth a visit up to Des Moines if you can work one out just to see it.

ZunarJ5•about 1 hour ago

The manosphere is rife with snake oil salesmen, it just changes form with time. Snake Oil as a concept is as old as money. Everyone wants a miracle, especially when hope can be commodified.

cogman10•about 1 hour ago

It goes far beyond the manosphere. You can find people selling all sorts of naturopathic, homeopathic, crystal, and Jesus endorsed medicines.

Anywhere a group of people gathers to downplay pharmaceuticals or evidence based medicine, you'll find them pushing their own untested and unregulated junk.

cogman10•about 1 hour ago

We need yet another "This has what it says it has" regulation around supplements and vitamins. There's basically no guarantee that any vitamin pill you pull off the shelf has any percentage of it's claimed ingredients. You could be getting 10% of what you wanted, you could be getting 1000% of what you wanted.

Fortunately, the body can handle some pretty wide variation. But unfortunately if you are taking a vitamin because you lack a nutrient, there's really no guarantee that your actually treating that deficiency.

Bender•4 days ago

Over the course of the 19th century snake oil transformed from folk remedy, to industrial medicine, to notorious fake.

And yet they can be a great source for Omega-3 fatty acids, most notably the Chinese water snake up to 20% EPA, the Erabu Sea Snake high in DHA. Rattlesnakes are much lower, around 5% to 6% Omega-3's better than nothing. I will always personally prefer Krill Oil for the high absorption.

There will always be scammers and grifters but I would prefer to not let them ruin the original product they are trying to exploit.